Third or fourth day after front passes is best, guide says
Speckled trout have moved out of the river and are now in the outer bays of the river system around Buras, a guide said.
Capt. Owen Langridge, with Big O Charters, said he prefers fishing under a cork this time of year with either an imitation shrimp or a blue cocahoe minnow with a chartreuse tail.
“Pop it once, keep the slack out of your line and just be patient,” Langridge said. “Sit there and watch it. Give the fish time to find it. They’re pretty lethargic this time of year, but they’re there.”
And he’s always been partial to “noisy cork,” he said.
“Throw a noisy cork and pop it really hard, then let it sit,” he said. “When you pop that cork, you’re moving it through the water and pulling your bait up to the surface, and then it falls.
“And it’s just like bass fishing: 90-percent of your bites will be when your bait is falling.”
Even more crucial to fishing success this time of year is planning your trip in relation to the cool fronts moving across the state, he said.
“When a front goes through down there on the west side, the wind will switch to the north and it’s going to blow, and blow hard,” he said. “It’ll blow all the water right out of the marsh.”
The first day after a front is often a clear, “bluebird day,” which is tough to fish, he said. The key is to try to time a trip with the return of a south wind.
“It’ll start blowing that water back in the marsh, and those will be good fishing days,” he said.
Bay Pomme d’or all the way out to Scofield Bay are prime locations to target for specks right now, he said.
“That whole area is going to hold trout this time of year,” he said. “That’s an excellent area to fish.”
Another key is to take along some live shrimp if you can get any, he said.
“I know people say trout are sight feeders and they don’t smell, but trout do smell,” Langridge said. “They just don’t smell as well as a redfish can smell, but they can smell that shrimp in the water.”
On his charters, he’ll often have one person using live shrimp while the others work plastics.
“Once they turn on to that live bait, you can keep them going with just a little bit of shrimp in the water,” he said. “Live bait seems to get them turned on.”
Redfish remain a pretty easy target, as well, he said.
“Redfish are everywhere downriver in the outer bays,” he said. “Anywhere along the roseau canes. Use the same rig with the same cork with some market bait under it, and your’e going to catch some redfish.”